Processing facilities are often managed using process control systems. Example processing facilities include manufacturing plants, chemical plants, crude oil refineries, and ore processing plants. Among other operations, process control systems typically interact with and control various field devices, such as sensors and actuators, in the processing facilities.
Wireless technology provides opportunities for process control systems to reduce instrumentation costs, such as by reducing the costs of installing and using sensors or other field devices in a control system. This reduction may, for example, be useful for less critical process measurements, where the costs of installing and using wired field devices may exceed the benefits provided by those wired field devices.
Field devices may contain dozens or hundreds of parameters, such as tunings, performance statistics, statuses, measurements, and other data of interest. A device description language (DDL) is often used to describe a field device. A device description language typically represents a text-based language that describes the characteristics of field device parameters. The device description language may allow a process control system to access the data of or otherwise interact with a field device. More specifically, the device description language may provide users with a mechanism to integrate, configure, operate, and maintain the field device.